When docs ask instead of order
It's easy to take medical risks when it's not your own body at stake.
Docs often forget that -- or some just don't give a hoot -- as they volunteer their unknowing patients to be Big Pharma's next set of human guinea pigs... and too many patients just go along for the ride without asking questions.
But a new study shows patients are much less willing to board the Big Pharma drug bus when they know where it REALLY stops.
The study found that patients are as complacent as sheep when a doc TELLS them what to do. But when a doc ASKS for their input, they're far more likely to thumb their noses at Big Pharma meds and pick less risky treatments.
Researchers at Yale University let patients watch videos in which a doctor described a drug along with a low risk of a serious side effect.
In some cases, the video was followed by instructions that they take the drug. In others, the patients were asked to make a choice.
And it turns out those who were given the choice were much less likely to take the new drug.
I can hear the whines now. "They're only patients! When the heck do they know?"
I've always found they know a lot more than most docs will ever give them credit for. What they don't know, it's up to us doctors to tell them... and by that I mean the whole truth, not just a line from some drug salesman's propaganda sheet.
Believe me, most folks are perfectly capable of figuring it out when we give them all the information they need. But too many dictator docs expect patients to walk into the office and submit to their every command, pop every pill and lie back for every test and procedure -- no questions asked.
Don't put up with that. If your doc won't invite you into the process, politely thank him... walk out... and then invite yourself to a new physician's office.
You're not a sheep, and you're no one's guinea pig. If docs don't like it, too bad.
States cut pointless anti-tobacco funding
Remember those zillion-dollar tobacco settlement funds that were supposed to pay for anti-smoking propaganda?
Well, now politicians are deciding they need that money for other things -- probably more bridges to nowhere -- and those funds are drying up.
That didn't take long, did it? Those government clowns burn through piles of cash faster than I can light up a fine Dominican cigar.
The 1998 settlement requires Big Tobacco to make huge annual payments to the states... with the understanding that a significant portion of the money go toward tobacco-related programs like anti-smoking campaigns.
But a new report finds that state governments cut $103.4 million, or more than 15 percent, from their anti-tobacco propaganda funds, despite collecting more cash from that settlement than ever before.
And in the coming year, those states will collect more than $25 billion from that tobacco settlement fund and tobacco taxes... but spend just over 2 percent of it -- $567.5 million -- on tobacco-prevention programs.
I've never known a politician who could keep his grimy hands out of the cookie jar, and this latest news shows just how badly they need to spend every dollar in sight on pork-barrel projects.
And with money tighter than ever, they're raising taxes, adding fees and pinching from every fund in sight.
Normally, I'd be outraged.
But in this case, I'm as pleased as punch -- because the anti-tobacco movement is one of the most underhanded, misguided, ill-informed nanny-state campaigns ever created. The ridiculous "public service" spots paid for with these funds are among the worst commercials on TV -- every bit as bad as Big Pharma's drug ads when it comes to misinformation and half-truths.
And that's saying something.
If you enjoy smoking, take my advice: Keep right on enjoying it, until they pry that last butt from your tobacco-stained fingertips. Just remember to take the smoke into your mouth, not your lungs -- the membrane inside your cheeks will absorb everything you need to get all the benefits.
Then be sure to exhale your second-hand smoke in full view of the tobacco-loathing, money-burning nanny-staters.
Seeing right through this smokescreen,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
With Love and Kindness,
THE HATMAN
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